Well, I’d rather use the term DOTA-like. MOBA doesn’t make any sense (Multiplayer online battle arena? Seriously? Like? What is quake then?), but then again RPG is not that meaningfull either so…

EDIT: No, seriously: I get the “multiplayer part”, it does the job, but “online”? How the fuck are you required to be an online game to be a friggin’ dota clone? There are other options that wouldn’t change the genre. Wouldn’t multiplayer be enough? “Battle”? Okay, why not, you fight things, sure. “Arena”? Well, what else would you do in an arena apart from fighting? So far, there are two useless terms. And what does it seems to mean? A GAME IN WHICH PEOPLE FIGHT INTO ARENAS. God damn it, that is revolutionary people! Pretty much every multiplayer game I know of is a MOBA then right? NO! Because it just defines DOTA clones! Oh god, I am going to bed now, I am getting too old for that crap I guess. (Sorry for the grumpy comment, that is not my usual style but I just couldn’t resist)

Tatourmi, there are MOBAs that are not necessarily symmetrical tower defense games, like Bloodline Champions. So yes the genre is not called DOTA even though most MOBAs are like DOTA. There are some that are not like it tho.

@Tatourmi:
I have to agree. ‘MOBA’ is simply a bullshit marketing term coined by Riot because it didn’t want to call itself a “DotA game” or “Dota-like.” It makes about as much sense as calling something an “interactive graphical experience.”
People should stop perpetuating the stupidity. People called bullshit when EA tried to call its Deadspace rail shooter a “guided experience.” Just call it DotA genre or something.

I agree, RPG doesn’t make much sense either (This one should seriously be changed) and any catégory in game is just shallow as can be, but once again so is every word in every language, and they are some sort of new words. As such they can be useful in discussions, when talking about archetypes and such, which makes them useful as a “common point” but MOBA is just ridiculously meaningless. At least you see what you are talking about when using the terms RTS or FPS. (Even though now I think that RTS might not be the best term).

I’m not sure what the confusion was. There are two separate links for this. One for the game, and the other to go grab a key. Unless that was fixed in an edit, I thought it was pretty clear. Why would you click on the link to grab a key if you didn’t want one?

Possibly the fact the link to the key appears before the text making a mention of how the key will be given. I suppose readers may tend to reflex-click the link and keep on reading, and only then realize what they just did.

In any case… yeah. “Read Before You Click” has saved many people from becoming roadkill.

It didn’t say “you will automatically claim a key by viewing the link while logged in.” before.
Personally I just wanted to check out what the beta key page was like. I didn’t except it to give me a key automatically.

Yep, same as Meneth. I also thought there might be a chance that there are other, more interesting beta keys on there (I’m sure this game is fine, but as I didn’t know what MOBA stood for until now, I’m guessing this probably isn’t for me.)

Rise of Immortals features the popular action-strategy gameplay of traditional MOBA games, but adds enhanced socialization features, along with persistent character progression

Y’know what’d be neat? A game made by someone who’s heard of DOTA et al. but never played it, so they had to design everything from scratch.

I want to bang my head against the wall every time I see another of these games, where somebody went “hey, I love DOTA – let’s make a game just like that, except add one new feature! it’ll be awesome!”

Well, to be fair, for a veteran player HoN and LoL are completely different. HoN is clearly an attempt to create a game as similar as DotA as possible, but make it faster paced. LoL takes strides to add new mechanics (the most important probably being scaling spells) and eliminate the “hyper-carry” of dota. To say either added just “one new feature” when they are vying for different portions of the market is a little absurd.

I like to imagine him as a crusader against inconsequential mail. Gleefully returning to sender and scribbling ‘Not known at this address’ with a cavalier flourish across the front of prize draw notifications.

I feel rather thick for asking, but I can’t seem to find the registration site to create an account on that site. It says Join beta at the top, but all that does is take me to a page to set up a newsletter subscription …

To be honest, I grabbed a key but ultimately didn’t use it: their sign up process demands far too many personal details just to bug test their game. I don’t feel comfortable giving up my home address and name to a random company that I doubt I’ll have any deliberate contact with in the future.

On the topic of using your ‘real address’ or not – I have a business address which I use for all this stuff, 100s of registrations over the years, and never, not once, not ever, have I had any mail from anywhere I didn’t expect it to come from.

No junk mail, no follow-ups, no marketing bumf, no catalogs – nothing.

Even where I’ve had to use my real address (tied to a debit/credit card) I get no addressed junkmail (just the unaddressed stuff that postmen and pizza menu guys carry and stuff from things I used to have like National Geo.)

I think people are just far far too paranoid – which I think comes from people thinking they’re far more special than they really are…